Guess who got 92% negative TV news coverage

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Example of Media Bias:

In four weeks, Americans go to the polls for the midterm elections that the news media are casting as a referendum on the Trump presidency.

Over the summer, the broadcast networks have continued to pound Donald Trump and his team with the most hostile coverage of a President in TV news history — 92 percent negative, vs. just 8 percent positive.

For this report, MRC analysts reviewed all 1,007 evening news stories (1,960 minutes of airtime) about the Trump administration on ABC, CBS and NBC from June 1 to September 30, tallying the coverage of each topic and all evaluative comments made by anchors, reporters and non-partisan sources (such as voters or experts).

The results show that, over the past four months, nearly two-thirds of evening news coverage of the Trump presidency has been focused on just five main topics:

the Russia investigation

immigration policy

the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination

North Korea diplomacy

and U.S. relations with Russia

The networks’ coverage of all of these topics has been highly negative, while positive accomplishments such as the booming economy* received extremely little coverage (less than one percent of the four-month total).

…..

… Amid this sea of coverage, the networks spent almost no airtime — a mere 14 minutes, or 0.7 percent — on the administration’s economic achievements, including the positive effects of the tax cuts and deregulation, plus historic job growth. Indeed, the only aspect of the Trump economic program that interested the networks during the past four months has been the President’s use of tariffs to push for better trade deals (80 minutes).

Coverage of Trump’s trade policy emphasized the downside: potential higher costs to consumers or the possible harm to industries that rely on foreign imports, as opposed to the potential for job growth or higher wages for American workers. That made the spin of trade news nearly as negative as the other major topics (88% negative), overwhelming the positive (89%) but puny coverage of the broader economic record. (From an Oct. 9 report by Rich Noyes at mrc.org.)

The Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard researched and compiled a list of 289 major accomplishments under the Trump administration. From the October 12 report:

Job openings are at an all-time high and outnumber job seekers for the first time on record.

Unemployment claims are at a 50 year low

African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American unemployment rates have all recently reached record lows.

African-American unemployment hit a record low of 5.9 percent in May 2018.

Hispanic unemployment at 4.5 percent.

Asian-American unemployment at record low of 2 percent.

Women’s unemployment recently at lowest rate in nearly 65 years.

Female unemployment dropped to 3.6 percent in May 2018, the lowest since October 1953.

Youth unemployment recently reached its lowest level in more than 50 years.

July 2018’s youth unemployment rate of 9.2 percent was the lowest since July 1966.

Questions

1. What type of bias does the excerpt illustrate?

2. Why do you think the Big 3 – ABC, CBS and NBC run almost all negative storeis on the Trump presidency?

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the answers.

Answer(s)

1. Bias by story selection, omission and spin.

2. Opinion question. Answers vary.

Identifying Media Bias

To accurately identify different types of bias, you should be aware of the issues of the day, and the liberal and conservative perspectives on each issue. (See our chart “Conservative vs. Liberal Beliefs”)

Types of Media Bias:

Omission – leaving one side out of an
article or a series of articles over a
period of time... (read more)

Selection of Sources – including
more sources that support one view
over another... (read more)

Story Selection – a pattern of
highlighting news stories that support
one side of an issue over another...
(read more)

Placement – the location in the paper
or article where a story or event is
printed; a pattern of placing news
stories so as to downplay information
supportive of one side... (read more)

Labeling – comes in two forms:
1. Tagging of person from one party
or group with extreme labels while
leaving the other side unlabeled or
with more mild labels.
2. A reporter not only fails to identify
a liberal or conservative as such, but
also describes the person or group
with positive labels, such as “an
expert” or “independent consumer
group”... (read more)

Spin – occurs when the story has only
one interpretation of an event or
policy, to the exclusion of the other.
Spin involves tone- a reporter’s
subjective comments about objective
facts... (read more)